Meet the Beast

Just when the Contenders think they've seen it all, the biggest, strongest and most unmerciful Swedish Gladiator has been revealed...Beast! He's the newest addition to the Swedish Gladiators (Gladiatorerna) team and has appeared in the middle of the 8th series as a surprise secret weapon.

Beast is a giant! A huge caveman!

Daniel Atterhagen

Beast, real name Daniel Atterhagen, originally applied to be a Contender but was contacted by the production team to inform him he was too big to be a Contender but they'd like to have him as a Gladiator instead.

New Swedish Gladiators: Spider, Herkules and Valkyria

He wasn't the only new Swedish Gladiator to appear in the latest series. Spider (Virena Andersson), Herkules (Marcus Olausson) and Valkyria (Lisa Pihl) also joined the Gladiator ranks. Original Swedish Gladiators Plexus (Johan Oldenmark) and Blade (Anna Larrson), who hadn't competed in the arena since 2004, also made welcome returns replacing the departing Spirit (Sarah Bäckman), Lynx (Lina Eklund), Ice (Helene Ahlson), Tor (Mikael Spreitz) and Wolf (Binais Begović).

Konstantin Avramidis and Elin Strömblad were crowned the champion Contenders on June 7th 2014 and TV4 have since confirmed that the show will return for Series 9 in spring 2015.